Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s statehood could suffer an “irreparable blow” if the pattern of the war continued, and Russia would never be forced to abandon the gains it had made. Putin made his televised comments a day after Switzerland agreed to host a global summit at the request of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Putin dismissed “so-called peace formulas” being discussed in the West and Ukraine and what he called the “prohibitive demands” they entailed.
“Well, if they don’t want (to negotiate), then don’t!” he said.
Fun fact: Ukraine has re-captured more than 50% of the territory Russia occupied since the last time Putin made this ridiculous threat.
This is very true. Unfortunately, the Russians have had time to build some significant defense lines and the Ukrainians don’t have the manpower to waste like Russia does. Generally, a defender has a significant advantage and an attacking force needs to use a lot more resources. Attackers have to move forward, generally in the open, and then build new defenses themselves. The Russian approach to breaking defenses is scorched earth. Flatten a city and overwhelm defenses and take the city. However, they are having to use North Korean artillery shells now so that doesn’t imply very good things about their domestic supplies and not allowing them to use as much artillery. (Rumors are that the lack of good barrel replacements combined with shoddy NK artillery shells have led to some interesting failures.)
The lines have been fairly static for a while now, unfortunately. Aside from occasional larger pushes from Russia, it’s mainly been lots of skirmishes and the front lines getting pushed back and forth.
Southwest Ukraine is just weird right now. The Ukrainians jumped the Dnieper a bit ago but haven’t really moved much after that. However, Russia has lost quite a few aircraft because of that move as it allowed Ukranian air defense to move much closer.
While this sounds a little grim, it kinda is. What Ukrainians do have is the ability to hold their current ground well against Russia and continue to let Russia waste resources. Ukrainians also have much more accurate weapons and better intelligence. This allows them to hit targets that hurt and see troop concentrations well ahead of any attack.
Edit: I should add that while the sound bites of one side gaining x% of land over another sound nice, it’s not usually the complete picture. The tankie counter to the “50% gain” is usually a twisted version of what I wrote above and with much less of the “why”. If you change the timeframe a hair, it’s easy to show land gains in the Russians favor. It’s all about how data is presented and what type of battle is currently being fought.
This whole comment is predicated on Russians having some kind of defender’s home field advantage which itself is a false premise and there goes the whole argument. There are no Russian supply lines in the eastern territories out of striking distance of Ukrainian combined forces anymore, which is why Putin has returned to terror bombing civilian populations regularly. He needs to create political leverage for negotiations before his occupiers siege themselves to death.
Edit: added “anymore”
Just the opposite? Ukrainians have the home field advantage, of course, and they are reinforcing the west as well. The surovikin line in the southeast seems like a royal pain still and the Russians are quite fortified there. The longer Russians occupy a territory, the longer they have to build up their own defenses. (That creates a “home field advantage” of sorts.)
I also eluded to Ukrainians having the intelligence and accuracy advantages which aligns with what you are saying about destroyed supply lines, especially around Avdiivka. There have been many videos of armor getting destroyed way in advance of any possible attack in that area and Avdiivka still stands as a result.
No matter how fortified their position is, they can’t get fresh water in and ultimately it’s not their home field. Crimea is Ukrainian and always will be. In this context, Aviidka is a red herring. Putin lost at conquest and is engaged in pure terrorism now.
I just want to clarify that I used the terms “occupied by” or “occupied territory”. That implies that Russia is temporarily in Ukrainian space and shouldn’t be there.
It seems you were trying to remind me of something I am in full support of or already understand: Crimea and occupied territories belong to Ukraine. Full stop. Russia attacking civilians and civilian infrastructure is terrorism. Full stop.
However, understanding war is not about blindly supporting a particular side. Over-estimating your own capabilities is just as dangerous as under-estimating your opponent. In part, Sun Tzu said it best: “Invincibility is in oneself, vulnerability is in the opponent”
In the context of war, invincibility is developing a sold defense as well as having a full understanding of your strengths, vulnerabilities and not denying the realities of the battlefield. In short, if the Ukrainians could have broken through the Russian defenses in their current state, they would have already. There is something stopping them. Ukraine is hammering the Russian logistical lines, but they haven’t halted them completely.
It seems that Ukrainians understand this and simply let Russia waste resources on blind, offensive moves. Ukrainians do not have the ability to waste manpower and its super important for them to be smart about their decisions. And they are. Russia is extremely predictable and Ukranians take advantage of this regularly.
(I am not Sun Tzu expert, grand military general or some kind of intellectual. Learning bits about the art of war is something that everyone should learn, though. In my particular case, I like to study war for use in my career. Unfortunately, we are all limited by the information we receive from Ukraine and Russia and what we can see on battlefield maps and videos.)
I’m sorry you see my analysis as blind support, I’ve been pretty frustrated with supposedly independent media constantly misreporting updates from the front without important context and causality for things that are going on, especially when people claimed to be so surprised with the quality of US intelligence before the invasion. Frankly, insulted.
Oh, I get it. Honestly, is hard for all of us to not be misled by one-sided reporting. It’s not fun to look at a war and see things we don’t want to see. That goes for me, you or anyone.
In the context of this conversation, I was trying to be objective. The front lines have been static recently and there are reasons for it, is all. (The front lines are as static as they can be, in a very dynamic situation. It’s yet-another issue of perspective.)
As an example, you had said that Russia cannot get fresh water because of their poor logistics. That is probably true, but it doesn’t take into account that Russia is likely pilfering supplies from occupied territories. Ukraine also cannot destroy its own infrastructure in the occupied territories because of civilians. Russia will take advantage of that.
Like I said, I am not an expert. However, I have been trying my best to read into reports from both Russia and Ukraine and also follow pro-Ukranian news/telegram channels and pro-Russian news/telegram channels. There are millions of different sources and millions of different opinions and it’s a pain to sort through everyday. What I can do, is give quick summaries for people who don’t follow every grain of news.